Cutting strait lines on the
golf course
with the enormous fairway mowers
is satisfying
It is like paving a road to heaven
when the sun rises
and the clouds are red and gold
You travel 400 yards
and admire the pattern on the other side
Even in heaven
Satan gets to visit
from time to time
and you see the short boss
who is bald
walking toward you with some negative words to
say about your cut
“Your lines aren’t strait! I’ve been
cutting grass for 30 years. You just fucked up this fairway.”
I had to give him props for his alliteration. I
thought it was above him.
I nodded and listened to him berate me for 15 minutes
and then continued doing what I was already doing.
I watched Billy mowing fairways on hole number
eight. The boss never talked to him.
A flock of geese were trying to cross his
fairway.
Canadians to be exact, and they were used to
golfers giving them the right-of-way
Suddenly, guts and feathers flew everywhere.
Strangled squawking pierced the morning air and
Billy took a sip of coffee.
I continued mowing.
There was the occasional mole hill I had to
scoop with the shovel attached to my mower.
The moles were a real problem and the boss
didn’t know what to do with them.
It was illegal to trap fur-bearing animals, but
traps were the only effective means to get rid of moles.
The city deemed it “cruel” to use
traps. The boss was on number 11 trying to smoke the moles out of their holes.
Nothing worked.
I know he tried three or four other methods, but
I can’t remember what they were.
The proshop began to complain. The mole
situation was worse.
There were brown piles of dirt all over the golf
course. The furry creatures were even burrowing up through the greens.
The boss decided to break the law and set traps.
He killed dozens of moles in only a few days.
Then he got a call from the city. “We
understand you are using illegal traps. If you persist, you will be brought
before an administrative council.”
Someone made an anonymous phone call. It could
have been anyone. I don’t think anybody cared if a mole spent its last few
moments of life in pain. They just hated the boss.